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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Poverty is the result of inequality

Okay
blog readers, brief plug first: if any of you do not watch or have not heard of Native Affairs,
highly recommended viewing. Mondays 08:30pm on Maori TV. It’s a current affairs
show – the best, to be honest. This
week, the main topic was poverty, specifically in relation to living
conditions. You can watch past episodes
online, just click on this link: http://www.maoritelevision.com/default.aspx?tabid=636&pid=212.

The
definition of poverty differs according to whose doing the measuring.
Typically, in NZ we measure relative poverty, simply meaning that we measure according
to the ‘minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate
standard of living’. We can therefore see that poverty derives from the inequality in respect of the
distribution of incomes. So while there are many people out there proffering
solutions such as community gardens to feed the poor or housing projects to
shelter them, within a monetary economic system, the only way of restoring equality and eliminating poverty is through the redistribution of wealth.

But
what government is willing to advocate for that?

I
acknowledge that there are many groups out there trying to ‘fix’ poverty or
individuals wanting to ‘fix’ it. But only the government is in a position to
make the changes necessary. The government must look at income distribution and
tax if they have any real intent to solve poverty in NZ. (see link at the bottom of the page for an interesting blog on tax)

Let
us look at the minimum wage, because it is not just beneficiaries living in
poverty. The argument is that we cannot raise the minimum wage because of the
adverse effect it would have on small business. Well, while we are busy
protecting small businesses from going bust by increasing the minimum wage, we
are also subsidising medium and large corporations who pay many of their
employee’s minimum wages and punishing those who are working for crumbs. Low-income
earners are entitled to claim subsidies such as accommodation supplements,
working for family tax credits and food vouchers. In an attempt to blind the
public to who the taxpayer is really subsidising, the government posit these
social security schemes as being benefits to our low-income earners and claim
this as some great deed that we as taxpayers are subsidising the incomes of low
wage employee’s. Bullshit. We are subsidising businesses so that they can pay
the employee less than their labour is worth so that they can make a bigger
profit. Taxpayers are doing no more than topping up the wages of low income
earners because the government privileges businesses over people. As a result,
the government cut further spending in the social services (including health
and education) because of the allocation of our taxes to subsidise businesses
who cry wolf at the thought of paying a living wage to an employee for their
labour. Interestingly, these business owners are usually the same people
harping on about individual responsibility, welfare statism and a free market
even though they are products of the same labels they use to chastise the poor.

So
my point is, while community gardens and housing projects will feed the poor
and provide shelter, they do not address the inequality issue. Redistribution of
wealth will help solve the inequality issue, but land ownership and an
insistence on private ownership of land, will always ensure that inequality
prevails. Think about it – we as human beings are always occupying a physical
space. Yet, every space we occupy has some rights, interests or obligations
attached to it. We cannot simply choose to opt out of society – because even if
we did, someone or some entity has rights and interests in every inch of the
land. So if we wanted to just go to sleep somewhere either local government
would prevent us from doing so on council owned land, DOC would prevent us from
doing so on conservation land, homeowners, renters and business owners would
prevent us from doing so on their privately owned land. Yet we must sleep. In commodifying land,
we have taken out of the commons a resource necessary for all land dwelling
species to survive. Successive governments have arbitrarily determined the
boundaries and the rights and interests that can be attached to land notwithstanding
that land is not a manufactured good whose origin can be traced to a particular
person. Additionally, land ownership has forced people to participate in a
society that they were contingently born into even if that means participating
to the detriment of their own well-being.

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About Me

The views expressed are my personal views. Some views will be well researched while others will be reactionary. Where appropriate I will provide references to material. Prone to inconsistencies over time. Feel free to hit me up about it.